There’s no question that this deal will change the mortgage industry for the better. Some homeowners will even have a much better chance of being able to restructure their loans when facing foreclosure under this deal.

No One’s Getting Their Keys Back

Yet, there are many out there who are going to feel little comfort with this agreement. Here’s what the deal is NOT going to do. It’s not going to put people who’ve lost their homes (again because of deceptive foreclosure practices) back in those houses, or give them any real financial security.

According to the deal, about 750,000 Americans, which by the way is about ½ of the people who are eligible for help under this settlement, may get a check for about $1,800. That’s the equivalent of one of those parting gifts they’d give contestants when they lose on Wheel of Fortune. In other words, it does them very little good.

Now it’s true that about a million current homeowners will supposedly get their loan balances reduced by an average of 20 thousand dollars. That’s great, and something we here at the South Florida Law Blog have been begging for. But when you consider their are about 11 million out there with underwater mortgages, A LOT of people will be no better off.

Banks Still On Easy Street

And here’s the other thing this deal doesn’t do. It doesn’t hold the banks accountable. Why after the mountains and mountains of evidence of wrong-doing, is the government still playing nice-nice with the nation’s lenders?

The funny thing about this settlement, despite the fact that it’s long overdue, it feels rushed. There hasn’t been a full investigation into the banks’ conduct, no discovery, yet here this deal is, as if they are trying to push it through before anyone notices. It’s feels as if they are trying to avoid the investigation in the first place!

Red Flags Already Raised

Several politicians, including Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, are already raising concerns over a lack of a proper investigation. We should also point out that the attorneys general in New York and California, a state with one of the highest foreclosure rates, have split from the federal government to pursue their own investigations. The ink on this deal isn’t dry and yet it’s already raising red flags.

“Wall Street is again trying to pass the buck,” Brown told the Associated Press, “Instead of criminal prosecutions, we’re talking about something that’s not more than a slap on the wrist.”

The banks have dragged their feet, in order to escape any real punishment. The perception still remains that the banks are too big to be punished, there is nothing in this deal that invalidates that notion. While we agree this deal should be and is about fixing the system, there is a call for retribution from homeowners that this deal simply doesn’t address.

A number of websites are (or were) planning to “go black” this week while the U.S. Congress discusses issues related to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). The website blackouts are part of a larger social media effort against the bills that our Greg Finn wrote about this morning on Marketing Land.

You may be thinking about joining the website blackout movement, but yikes … what about the SEO implications? How do you take your site offline in protest without messing up your visibility in Google’s search results?

Well, Google’s Pierre Far shared several tips earlier today on Google+ in a post called “Website outages and blackouts the right way.”

In short, the advice is to use a 503 HTTP status code to tell spiders that the website is temporary unavilable. With a 503 status, Google won’t index the content (or lack thereof if you’re blacking out your site) and it won’t consider the site as having duplicate content issues (when all of the pages are blacked out).

But Far adds a couple important caveats to this advice regarding the robots.txt file and what will happen in Webmaster Tools if Google finds your site blacked out. Another Googler, John Mueller, adds additional information in the comments, so you’ll want to read the original Google+ post if you’re thinking about blacking out your website this week for SOPA, or in the future for any other reason.

Of course, also keep in mind that Bing may not handle things the same way if you do blackout your site.

About The Author:Matt McGee is Search Engine Land’s Executive News Editor, responsible for overseeing our daily news coverage. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. See more articles by Matt McGee

Wikipedia Will Go Dark On January 18 To Protest SOPA And PIPA

Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,… → Learn More

Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales wanted to send a “big message” to the U.S. government regarding the two heinous internet censorship bills currently being considered, and after a brief period of debate the world’s encyclopedia will soon do just that.

The Wikipedia founder announced on Twitter today that starting at midnight on Wednesday, January 18, the English language version of the world’s encyclopedia will go dark for 24 hours in protest of SOPA and PIPA. With their commitment confirmed, Wikipedia will be joining a slew of websites and companies that will suspend their operations for one day in an effort raise awareness around the two bills.

Meant to curb IP theft and piracy, the (imaginatively named) Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act have raised eyebrows recently due to their decidedly scorched-earth approach to handling suspected offenders. Websites found to offer pirated content, along with the services that they use, could be hidden from US internet users by being delisted on search engines and potentially on DNS servers themselves.

Rather than let users access Wikipedia’s vast stores of English-language information on the 18th, Wales mentioned that the Wikipedia landing page will instead be populated with a letter of protest and a call to action that urges readers to get involved with the issue. It doesn’t appear as though the new landing page has been finalized, but one of the community’s prototypes can be seen above.

The news comes after a lengthy debate as to the particulars of such a grand gesture — whether or not the site should participate at all, which versions of the site would be affected, and how exactly the blackout would go down were all on the table for the community to discuss. Ultimately, the consensus pointed to a full blackout as a the proper way to make their collective displeasure known. There’s no official word on how other parts of the site will handle the event, although Wales has mentioned that the German language version of the site will be displaying a banner in support.

Meanwhile, some of SOPA’s supporters are already reacting to the very public backlash against the bill. Ars Technica reports that Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX) would be pulling his DNS-blocking provisions from the bill after having consulted with “industry groups across the country.” What’s more, the White House has responded to two petitions about SOPA and PIPA on the official White House blog stating that they will not “support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

Wales notes on Twitter that while SOPA has been “crippled,” buts its counterpart in the Senate is still very much alive and very dangerous. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently popped up on Meet The Press claiming his continued support for PIPA even though it “could create some problems.”

Though the event is meant to raise public awareness over two critical pieces of legislation, Wales still took a moment to offer a bit of sage advice for students heading back to school:

The former military intelligence analyst accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks has spent the last four days in a Maryland military court, undergoing a hearing to determine whether or not his case will proceed to court-martial.

For those new to the party, 24-year-old Bradley Manning is accused of committing the biggest security breach in American history. He has been in detainment for the last 19 months, and he faces a multitude of military charges.

The Article 32 hearings, which began on Friday, are something akin to grand jury proceedings in civilian court. At the end, Investigating Officer Colonel Paul Almanza, an Army Reserve officer and Justice Department prosecutor, will decide recommend whether Manning’s case will proceed to court-martial.

So far, the hearings have been interesting to say the least. Let’s see what’s going on….

Manning, who turned 24 Saturday, is charged with 22 violations of military law and faces possible life imprisonment. Manning, who at the time was an Army intelligence analyst, is accused of abusing his access to classified computer systems to leak diplomatic cables, Iraq and Afghanistan action reports and the so-called Collateral Murder video to WikiLeaks. In chat logs published by Wired, Manning allegedly told Lamo that he leaked the documents as an act of political protest against a corrupt system and the he snuck files out of a shared workroom using rewritable CDs labeled with pop stars names, such as Lady Gaga.

One of the bigger revelations from the hearings is that the government produced chat logs from Manning’s own computer, where the soldier allegedly discussed leaking the cables. The messages had previously been made public, but Julian Assange and other Manning supporters claimed the chat messages could have been fabricated. Because the government found the logs on Manning’s own computer, forgery seems less likely.

The hearings have been understandably tense. Manning has a lot of supporters in the technology community. Although he has spent the last year and a half in custody, many say he is a whistleblower, not a traitor.

Back in April, more than 250 legal scholars signed a letter protesting the way the Justice Department was treating Manning. In the letter, signatories including Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe protested Manning’s “degrading and inhumane conditions.” The letter called the military’s conduct illegal and unconstitutional.

On Friday, the hearing started with a bang when defense attorneys accused Investigating Officer Colonel Almanza (the equivalent of a judge in the case) of bias, because of his work as a Justice Department prosecutor. The defense unsuccessfully asked Almanza to recuse himself. (Hmm, I wonder where we’ve seen that before?)

Earlier today, retired lieutenant and prominent Don’t Ask Don’t Tell activist Dan Choi told Politico he was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed while trying to attend the hearing.

Zetter reported another dramatic moment on Sunday, which reads like something out of A Few Good Men:

Proceedings in the court this morning continued in a contentious manner between defense attorney Coombs and the proceeding’s equivalent of a judge, Investigating Officer Capt. Paul Almanza. At one point, when the IO tried to stop a line of questioning with a witness, questioning the relevancy. Coombs abruptly walked to the defense table and grabbed a book containing Article 32 procedural rules and brandished it to Almanza.

“I would caution the investigating officer as to case law,” he said, adding that the defense should be given wide latitude in questioning to obtain evidence.

“The IO should not arbitrarily limit cross-examination, ” he said. “I am not going off into the ozone layer about this. . . I should be allowed to ask questions about what this witness saw so I can have this testimony under oath as part of discovery.”

Zetter reports that the defense is trying to show that the Army should have responded better to behavioral problems Manning exhibited early in his enlistment. He should have never been deployed, or he should have lost his security clearance earlier, “both of which would have made it impossible for him to obtain the documents he allegedly leaked to WikiLeaks.”

So which is it? Traitor or courageous hero? Should the government put him in jail and throw away the key, or throw him a parade?

Christopher Danzig is a writer in Oakland, California. He covers legal technology and the West Coast for Above the Law. Follow Chris on Twitter @chrisdanzig or email him at cdanziggmail.com. You can read more of his work at chrisdanzig.com.

Elie and I aren’t the only ones upset. The Internet has whipped into a tizzy over the act. We mentioned it last week in Non-Sequiturs. And I wrote about it back in November. But the story has kept picking up speed. Reddit has gone mad over the bill. Just before the new year, a bunch of Biglaw firms got mistakenly dragged into the fray.

Keep reading for a primer on SOPA and its sister Senate bill, the Protect IP Act. And see why a bunch of Biglaw firms were unintentionally listed as supporters after the jump.…

Robinson had the grace and the courage to tell law students it was their own fault for the rampant price gouging that happens as a result of the ABA’s ineffective oversight of law schools. It took real strength of character for Robinson to share this anecdote: “When I was going to law school . . . I sold my Corvair to make first-semester tuition and books for $330.” I mean, how many people in Robinson’s position would be so out of touch that they think prospective law students are driving automobiles that can cover a whole semester of tuition at an American law school!

And let me tell you, law school professionals — the people who have to deal with the perception of general ABA incompetence on a day-to-day basis — were not at all happy with William Robinson’s comments….

I asked about ten public relations or communications professionals about Robinson’s comments. Nobody would go on the record with me. It was kind of funny; nobody would even go on the record to say “no comment.” At least Bill Robinson won’t be dragged through the press by member institutions for his insensitive remarks.

But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have opinions. When I asked people, I heard, “I can’t believe he said that,” or “Great, the ABA makes my job more difficult, AGAIN.” There was disbelief and a bunch of grumbling, especially as the news percolated around the conference in the morning.

But as the day wore on, people had an opportunity to reflect more on Robinson’s statements. Said one PR person for a top 100 law school:

It’s frustrating because he has a point worth making. The information is out there… and law students… everybody in these times, have to take advantage of the information that is out there….

But who was the person that even let him do that interview and say those things?

Frustrating is how a couple of other people described Robinson:

The conversation about the cost of law school and what to do about it has been going on for years. It is… frustrating for Robinson to come in and preach about what is, at best, one part of the problem.

But perhaps the most telling comment was from a person representing a relatively new law school:

At my law school, we are [long spiel about the heroic attempts his law school has made to keep tuition down]. We want people to know what they’re getting into financially, and make smart decisions with loans and debt….

What was your question? Robinson? Yeah, don’t care.

Well played, anonymous sir. Robinson’s comments might have been insensitive, out-of-touch, and incorrect — but who cares? It’s not like any other ABA president has done anything to help control the cost of law school tuition. It’s not like any law school administrator or dean is thinking about the ABA and their new smack-talking president when they present their projected budgets to the presidents of their universities.

Robinson’s words might sting and might make him look like an idiot, but they carry the force and effect of a Jon Huntsman campaign ad.

Let me put it this way: I wanted to talk to people about William Robinson, but nobody wanted to talk to me about him. The law school administrators wanted to talk about what law schools were doing — not the latest dumbass missive from the ABA.

President Barack Obama shakes hands with Richard Cordray before speaking about the economy, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012, at Shaker Heights High School in Shaker Heights, Ohio. In a defiant display of executive power, President Barack Obama on Wednesday will buck GOP opposition and name Cordray as the nation’s chief consumer watchdog. Outraged Republican leaders in Congress suggested that courts would determine the appointment was illegal. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

(CNSNews.com) – John C. Eastman, a professor at Chapman University School of Law who is an expert on the constitutional separation of powers, says that the White House simply ignored the section of the Constitution, which governs when Congress can adjourn, when President Obama claimed to use the “recess” appointment power on Wednesday to name a director to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and three members to the National Labor Relations Board.

Eastman says that under the terms of the Constitution Congress was not in recess this week, it was in session.

“They’re ignoring that the recess clause was designed to fill vacancies that occurred during the recess. These did not,” said Eastman. “They are ignoring entirely Section 5, Article 1. The Senate doesn’t have the authority to recess without the House’s approval even if they wanted to. So Carney’s claim that this is just a gimmick completely ignores that the House didn’t authorize them to leave at all.”

Article 1, Section 5, Clause 4 of the Constitution says: “Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.”

Because the Republican-controlled House did not allow the Senate to adjourn, neither House was in recess.

Eastman, however, also said that the Senate in the last two decades has given a more expansive meaning to advise and consent than the founders envisioned. The intent, Eastman said, was to provide a check to prevent the president from appointing relatives or other unqualified people to high government posts.

The White House asserts that the so-called “recess appointments” Obama made on Wednesday are constitutional because Congress was out of session for a “sustained period of time.”

“Our assessment is that Congress has been in recess and has made every indication that it will be in recess for a sustained period of time, and that gaveling in and gaveling out for seven seconds does not constitute a recess with regard to the president’s constitutional authority,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday.

“If these gimmicks were all a Senate needed to do to prevent the president from exercising his constitutional authority–any president–then no Senate would, I mean, no president would ever be able to exercise it,” said Carney.

Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution says that the president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”

Despite this constitutional language, Obama made his appointments without Senate approval.

Obama named former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as director of the CFPB. He also named to the NLRB, Sharon Block, a deputy assistant in the U.S. Labor Department who once worked with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy; Terence F. Flynn, chief counsel to NLRB Board Member Brian Hayes, a Republican; and Richard Griffin, the general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers. Griffin also serves on the board of directors for the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee, a position he has held since 1994.

The constitutional legitimacy of these appointments will be questioned, said Russell Weaver, a professor at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville.

“My guess is the president’s action is illegal,” Weaver told CNSNews.com. “You can be confident there will be a court challenge the first time this newly, allegedly appointed director takes an action where money is involved. I don’t think there is any doubt this will end up in the courts and go on for years. If it’s struck down, it would undermine everything that’s done in the meantime.”

Both the executive and legislative branches–and both parties–have historically exceeded their roles in the appointment process, said Bob Turner, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.

“The clear purpose of the recess appointment clause was not to permit the president to undermine the Senate’s constitutional negative if senators go home for the night or take a three-day weekend, but to permit the government to continue functioning when the Senate elects not to do business for an extended period of time,” Turner told CNSNews.com. “The length of that time ought to be established in good faith and reasonableness based upon the totality of the circumstances–what is the vacancy and how urgent is it for the nation to fill the position before the Senate is likely to return to do such business?”

“I would add that this controversy is a consequence of constitutional impropriety on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue,” Turner said. “Rather than limiting their review to assuring that ‘no unfit person’ be appointed–blocking the appointment of unqualified relatives, college roommates, big financial contributors, and the like–the Senate too often perceives its role as preventing the president from having advisers and subordinates who share his political views.”

Michael Rappaport, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, said recess appointments can be problematic. “I don’t think the Constitution gives the authority under its original meaning,” Rappaport told CNSNews.com. “Even under the precedents, it is a dicey question. Under the current law, it is not clear, although I would argue that the stronger side suggests the president does not have the authority.”

There is a strong argument that the president’s power to make recess appointments was intended to apply only when Congress was out of session, but it’s not entirely settled, said Brian Kalt, a professor at Michigan State University College of Law.

“That still leaves the question of what to do when, as now, the Senate claims that it is staying in session by holding these pro forma meetings every few days. The president can argue that this doesn’t count as being in session, because the Senate isn’t really ready to do any business like voting on a nomination,” Kalt told CNSNews.com. “Alternatively, he can argue that the time between these pro forma meetings constitutes a recess.”

“The bottom line is that nobody knows for sure because it has never really been resolved in court. Presidents have pushed the boundaries on this and while Senates have protested, nobody has stopped a president yet,” Kalt continued. “This time, the president is pushing the boundaries further. It’s hard to get a reviewable case out of these situations. I think that this time we might get one, though.”

Asked if the White House sought legal advice from the Justice Department, Carney was not specific.

“I think I actually can say that we routinely consult with the Department of Justice on a range of legal matters, but we also routinely don’t delve into the specifics of any confidential legal guidance that the president or the White House in general would receive in the course of those consultations,” Carney said. “So, I mean, I think that’s just standard operating procedure.”

Carney also said, “We feel very strongly that the Constitution and the legal case is strongly on our side. But more importantly, this isn’t about process. This isn’t about whether or not Congress is in session. If I could digress for a minute, I think all of you could run up to Capitol Hill and check out the House and Senate and see if you can find a single member of Congress and tell me on this working day across America if Congress is in session.”